Aircel GPRS with Linux and Bluetooth

But my struggle started here with my service provider, My main reason to bought this particular phone is to get Internet access at my home. So that I can #join at anytime. But it was a tough ask with Aircel.

At first, when I inserted my SIM card, lot of activity happens and I got a message from Aircel saying to save a settings message. After that, I received a settings message saying “Pocket Internet”. I already know that there is a service provided by Aircel called “Pocket Internet” to access internet in mobile, But when I searched more about “Pocket Internet”, I came to know that I can’t connect to my PC and browse, because “Pocket Internet” is a WAP service.

So I called CustCare, but as I expected, those guys are dump about what I’m talking, First I asked whether I can connect my PC and use “Pocket Internet” for browsing? but no clear answers from them. After 2 calls, I called one more time, this time, CustCare person informed that I need to configure my phone to access “Aircel GPRS”, he also informed that if your phone is capable, the settings would have already came.

I was shocked, because my Nokia 2730c is a 3G capable mobile, but I didn’t receive ‘Aircel GPRS’ settings, only I received “Pocket Internet” settings. I was nearly at the edge to change my provider. Whenever I call them, they are not at all listening to my words, they simply saying that my mobile is not capable. I got frustrated and stopped calling them, after 2 days, I called them thinking that it would be my last call, thankfully that person responded me in a positive manner, they already have my call history and he is able to understand what my problem is, The exact problem is simple,

“Aircel didn’t have settings for Nokia 2730c, because its a new model”

So, I didn’t receive “Aircel GPRS” settings when I inserted my SIM. Thanks to that person, he raised a ticket to their technical team, and they rectified this issue next day itself. Day after that day, I received “Aircel GPRS” settings. and connected to “Nokia OVI store” using “Aircel GPRS” Access Point in my mobile.

First phase of this struggle is over, here comes the next,

It would have been a simple task if I’m a windows user, connect my mobile to laptop, use PC suite to dial-up and access internet, thats all. But, Its a task up to me to get the ppp settings from Aircel. Thankfully Ubuntu guys have a very good writeup for aircel. It makes easy for me to use ‘pppconfig’ and create ‘/etc/ppp/peers/aircel’ file and ‘etc/chatscripts/aircel’ file. Here is the steps,

root@Debian:/etc/ppp/peers# aptitude install pppconfig
root@Debian:/etc/ppp/peers# pppconfig aircel
select "Create a Connection named aircel" and select "Ok"
select "Dynamic DNS" and select "Ok"
select "PAP" and select "Ok"
give username as "Aircel" and select "Ok"
give password as "aircel" and select "Ok"
pppconfig will give speed of your modem as 115200, use this default
Select "Tone" and select "Ok"
give phone number as *99***1#
Next step will be giving the modem name, I'm going to use /dev/rfcomm0 (bluetooth serial device) so I selected "No" and gave '/dev/rfcomm0' as my modem name.
Finally select "Finished Write files and return to main menu", two files will be created, only will be '/etc/ppp/peers/aircel' and another one is '/etc/chatscripts/aircel'
select "Quit"

Now, I need to modify the ‘/etc/chatscripts/aircel’ file and insert the following lines after ‘ATZ’ init line. These two lines specifies Aircel’s APN aka Access Point Name which is ‘aircelgprs.pr’, I think if you are using Aircel’s postpaid service, then you need to give ‘aircelgprs.po’. But check your mobile’s “Aircel GPRS” settings first, it will clearly tell Access Point Name.

Now, if you connected your mobile through wire, your mobile will be accessable through any one of /dev/ttyS* or /dev/ttyUSB* devices, you can start ‘pon aircel’ and get connected to net. But I’m going to setup bluetooth, so here is the steps,

Now, your authentication-agent will ask for pin and all, go through it and create a pair. Next step will be detecting the channel to setup a rfcomm bind,

root@Debian:/etc/ppp/peers# sdptool browse "${BDADDR}" | less

In the above command, there will be lot of services your mobile will provide to you, each will have seperate rec handle, name etc., some of them like obex push, obex file transfer, Headset Gateway, Phonebook access etc. You need to see ‘Dial-up Networking’ and note down the RFCOMM channel number. In my mobile, the RFCOMM channel number is ‘1’. So here is the step to bind your mobile’s RFCOMM channel with /dev/rfcomm0 device

‘bind’ will create a communication line between your mobile and /dev/rfcomm0 device. But it will not connect to your mobile until it is opened for reading/writing. You can check current rfcomm devices using following command

Now everything was setup, all you need to do is, type the following command

root@Debian:/etc/ppp/peers# pon aircel

it will start pppd and try to connect, but it will not throw any information in your terminal, you need to watch the activities through ‘tail -f /var/log/syslog’. If everything goes fine, it will establish ppp connection to Aircel. Here is the whole log